All birds on the affected farm will be culled, the British government said
Britain said on Friday a suspected case of avian flu had been reported at a poultry farm in northern England, but the risk to public health was very low and it posed no food safety concerns.
Officials imposed a six-mile control zone to limit risk of the disease spreading and all birds on the farm would be destroyed, the government said.
"We have taken swift precautionary action to limit the risk of disease spreading," said Britain's chief vet, Nigel Gibbens.
"These measures to control the movement of poultry and humanely cull birds at the farm are part of our tried and tested approach to deal with such incidents."
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said an investigation into the suspected bird flu case was ongoing.
Britain had an outbreak of the highly contagious H5N8 bird flu at a duck farm in northern England last November, the first since 2008. Restrictions on the movement of poultry in the surrounding area were lifted a month later.
"We have a strong track record of controlling and eliminating previous outbreaks of avian flu in the UK," Defra said in a statement.
No comments:
Post a Comment